5 Ways To Prevent SMS Fraud and Scam

The amount of spam text messages sent out everyday to cellphone users keeps on increasing everyday. Reports show that this criminal activity is gaining momentum. Apart from kids, almost everybody uses a cellphone basically to stay connected.

Every time, millions of scam messages about catchy things like cheap mortgages, free gift cards, claim to property or cash, lotteries and many more are sent to phone users and sometimes one pays for this messages without even knowing it.

The idea of these message scams is to get your attention through interesting headlines and if you are not lucky enough as in most cases, you will fall a victim to this messages scams. Apart from stealing your money, the spam messages also come with potential threat to your financial security. Most of them are intended to introduce a malware to your device in order to steal your personal information especially that associated with your financial transactions or they may come with numbers which you will be required to dial. All these and many more are some of the common ways this fraudsters solicit for your personal details.

Though it has been discovered that the best way to avoid paying for this text message scams is to have a text message plan, but experience has shown that this is not entirely enough to stop the influx of this annoying messages. The purpose of this article is to provide some useful guidelines that if properly adhered to will help you worry less about this scam messages.

1. Always ignore messages that you didn’t request or subscribe for. In order words never respond to unsolicited messages whose source is unknown to you. Most of such messages usually come with the option to prevent future messages by either replying with text such as STOP or NO or by dialing a particular number. Please ignore, and delete them. Do not even give it a second thought

2. Install anti-malware software that is compatible with your phone and also upgrade them when notified to do so. It may be challenging to get the right malware protection that suits your phone, hence you may need to consult either your phone manufacturer or service provider for advice. Also make sure you confirm every message you get to upgrade the software by consulting the software provider. Having an anti-malware software will go a long way in ensuring better protection to your personal details and information and protecting them from a third party.

3. Always check your phone bill to make sure you are not being charged for an unwanted services by a third party. Contact your service provider if you notice any unsolicited charges directed to your phone account.

4. Whenever you get messages from an unknown source asking you to click on links in order to redeem a prize or have access to some kind of service you are unaware of; do well to ignore them. Such messages are usually associated with fraud and it is advisable to delete them immediately.

5. To avoid unwanted messages you can also contact your service provider. Though the guidelines discussed above will go a long way in making sure you don’t fall victim of SMS fraud, however, just to be on the safer side it is better not to store credit card information on your phone.

In conclusion, careful adherence to the steps explained above will help you prevent message scams and have a better control on your phone account.

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